10 PERSPECTIVES April 22, 2010 � Mount Holyoke News

For a liberal arts college student, the contrastbetween a big university and a small, intimate col-lege can be drastic. As a fellow student here in the

U.K. told me, “At Mount Holyoke, you are always taken care of with professorsmaking sure that you are on the right track. Here, you are pretty much on yourown.”

When I first started my classes at the University of Edinburgh, I was aston-ished by the number of students and professors. Although I was prepared to at-tend classes with hundreds of students, I didn’t expect to see the courses co-taughtby six to ten professors. I often sit there and wonder how can the professors formclose relationships with their students.

At Mount Holyoke, my professors know me well and I regard many of themnot only as mymentors, but also as close friends. Here, however, I often wonder ifthe professors even know the names of their students. Of course, when studentshave questions, they can always go to the professors’ offices or email them, butrarely will students visit professors as friends. A friend of mine joked, “My advi-sor is always busy—I only see him when we meet and discuss my thesis. I oftenhave to chase him!” In contrast, at Mount Holyoke, I often go to my advisers justto share about what is going on in my life. I remember that during my sophomoreyear, when I was going through a tough period, I attendedmy adviser’s office hoursevery week just to chat with her. Each time I came out of her office, I felt a lot morecomposed.

Education in the U.K. is also more specialized. Chemistry students may spendyears doing nothing but chemistry. They dig deep into this field, but may not learnmuch about other subjects. I consider this both a benefit and a disadvantage. Inmy medicinal chemistry class, for example, the chemistry majors often strugglewith biology concepts. As my adviser here joked when he saw “History of Medi-cine” onmy course record, “Wow, a humanities class!What are humanities? I don’tunderstand a word about them! Well, but I am just a boring chemist.” On the con-trary, the unique liberal arts education of Mount Holyoke offers students moreperspectives and problem-solvingmethods to think about. Most American studentsI met here seem to havemore lab experiences and tend to approach questions frombroader angles.

In this way, the U.K. education system resembles that of other countries likeFrance, Germany and China. Such systems offer amore focused and specialized ed-ucation. Students specialize in a certain subject and often go into the workforce inthat area. The U.S. system, and especially liberal arts education, on the other hand,focuses on nurturing well-rounded students.

Danes and Americans often askmewhyI chose to study in Denmark. Covering anarea half the size of Maine and with a popu-lation of five million inhabitants, the coun-try represents a mere 0.008 percent of theworld’s 6.7 billion people. Yet what attractedme to Denmark was not its size, but thestate’s culture and unique welfare system.

Denmark has been ranked consistentlyas one of the happiest countries in the worldand, as a result of its large welfare state,boasts low unemployment rates, high edu-cation standards and provides its populationwith many social benefits, including univer-sal health care. While mingling with Danesas an American, onemight often find oneselftrying to defend the state of U.S. politics,health care and education. While I havefound it difficult to defend a lot of Americanways, my overall experience with the Dan-ish system has been nothing but positive.

Upon my arrival in Denmark, I was sentto the Kommune Office to get my “CPRCard,” my official Danish ID, library cardand health insurance card. The Kommuneoffice was newly renovated and I wasgreeted by smiling faces. I took a numberand five minutes later, a lady was typing myname in the computer and asking mewhether I preferred amale or female doctor.This first experience with Danish efficiency,I soon found, was true for other aspects oflife here.

Another unique component of the Dan-ish welfare system is higher education fund-

ing. Not only do Danish students attend uni-versities for free, but they are also paidwhile completing their studies. They maytake up to six years to complete their de-grees, and after graduation, Danish job cen-ters assist them in career searches andsupport them financially for up to six yearsuntil they find jobs. This support system isin stark contrast with the American one.Sure, the U.S. federal government providesgrants, but students still have to rely finan-cially on either their parents, waitressingjobs or private donations.

The idea is that it is in Denmark’s bestinterest for all its citizens to be well edu-cated. The Ministry of Education reportsthat more than 80 percent of Danes completea general upper secondary education. How-ever, they are working to improve the figureto 95 percent. State support is prevalent inother aspects of life as well, including a one-year maternity leave, high pensions for re-tired persons and career advising whenpeople unexpectedly become unemployed.

The downside is that Danes pay hightaxes. The average taxation rate is between42 and 63 percent of one’s income, a levelthat many Americans would find problem-atic. Yet despite the high taxes, recent sur-veys show, Danish citizens remain content.They don’t mind being taxed because theyunderstand where their money is going andlike to know that they are contributing totheir society. Though no expert in econom-ics or politics, I think there is one thing theU.S. can learn from the Danes—group soli-darity.

“The dream of the parents here is that our childrencontinue their education after the age of 15,” my hostmother in rural Ramón García,

Nicaragua told me. She didn’t havethe opportunity to attend school butbenefited from the adult literacy cam-paign after the 1979 revolution.

Alfebetización, or the literacycampaign, was launched in the early1980s by the Sandinistas, members ofa socialist party in Nicaragua. Uni-versity students paused their studiesto travel to rural areas of the country,teaching literacy to adults. As a re-sult, 400,000 adults learned to readand write in 1990, according to Re-vista Envío Magazine, and the liter-acy rate rose from 49 percent to 87percent in five months, according toa 2005 UNESCO report. In 2009,nearly 30 years after the literacy cam-paign, the US Department of Stateputs the estimate at just 81 percent,which shows there is still much roomfor improvement in Nicargua’s edu-cation system.

In 1990, with the election of con-servative Violeta Chamorro, neolib-eral policies were introduced andsocial programs were privatized.More than 370 teachers and schoolprincipals, Envío reported, were firedor transferred. The guiding principlefor this campaign was well articu-lated by the education minister, So-fonías Cisneros: “We don’t want wiseteachers; we want loyal ones.”

New textbooks replaced the oldones, erasing the propaganda of therevolution, along with history. Thenew books, Envío observed, depicted“blue-eyed children, references toSanta Claus and sentences about ‘rid-ing a bicycle to market.’” They alsotold the stories of “mothers who cook,wash and use sewing machines, fa-

thers who work and bring home money and children whorun errands”—images foreign to the Nicaraguan children,especially those who live in the countryside, start work inthe fields at a young age and never expect Santa Claus tovisit their homes. A Christian element was also added to

the texts, contributing to the power the Catholic Churchexercises in the country.

Though the new government spentmore on educationthan during the 1980s, parents were also required to paya monthly fee and other expenses in a country where 80

percent of the population lives on less thantwo dollars per day. The principal of a publicprimary school inManagua, told me in an in-terview that the intent was to decentralizeeducation and undermine the power of theministry of education. According to YamilethPérez, my advisor, health promoter, commu-nity organizer andmother of four, during the16 years of conservative government, par-ents had to pay one dollar monthly per child,plusmoney for supplies, exams and food. Formany parents, the costs were too steep, andtheir children were prevented from receiv-ing an education.

As soon as the Sandinistas assumedpower in 2006, they developed a new literacyprogram to help poor families. But problemsstill persist. La Prensa, a conservative news-paper in Nicaragua, reported a shortage ofdesks, a deficit claimed to affect 60,000 chil-dren, especially in rural areas. In the pri-mary school I visited, there is no playground,only a few sad-looking swings, there is noair-conditioning in the sweltering class-rooms and the principal uses her own in-come to help buy textbooks. The teachersare paid a pittance of around $250 a month.

But even in Managua, Nicaragua’s capi-tal, it is not uncommon to see children sell-ing fruits on the streets, washing windowsduring red lights or simply begging. When Iclimbed the mountain of trash that is LaChureca, the municipal dump, children asyoung as five or six were helping their par-ents search for bottles and trash that theycan sell, in the smoke, dust and sun. Thehope lies in new programs and grassrootsorganizers that work to increase accessibil-ity of education and help parents who,though not educated themselves, begin tosee education as an imperative for their chil-dren.

NICARAGUA’S POOR STRUGGLE TO ATTAIN EDUCATION

BY SCHUYLER MARQUEZ ’11STAFF WRITER

BY XIAOWEN WANG ’11STAFF WRITER

BY MIKA KIE WEISSBUCH ‘11CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Denmark’s welfare system:An example to follow

First-hand accounts oneducation in the U.K.

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